@gregoiregilbert In late-2012, I was approached to work with a fairly prominent menswear startup in the US.
I loved their user experience, but their business model was predicated upon amassing users, with little-to-no focus on sustainability or longevity. As such, price-points were becoming prohibitively high and the experience was slipping.
So, as someone who cared about the men's fashion world and about well-written journalism, I decided I wanted to combine the two. Rather than selling hundreds of products, we'd only sell a handful. And, looking to the issues I had with other companies in the space, I felt there were some obvious avenues to address a male customer's shopping experience.
The result would be something sustainable, relevant, and useful. The business model would be profitable, we'd only send one email per month, and we'd just remove ourselves from the vicious fight for customer attention.
At the end of the day, it's not a zero sum game. The menswear industry is worth $130 billion. And yet, men still hate to shop. So, it can survive a few people experimenting in the space! For me, it became a question of how I could address that whilst supporting photographers, brands, and writers in a reliable and ongoing manner.